Back-arc basins such as the Lau at the Australian-Pacific plate boundary are of particular interest as productive centers of crustal formation. They host a diversity of crustal structure, compositions, and processes not found at mid-ocean ridges. Using geochemical data culled from PetDB and other sources from the Eastern Lau Spreading Center and the Valu Fa Ridge, Eason… Read More

During the past 40 years trace element indiscrimination diagrams have been widely used as a reliable method to determine the tectonic settings of mafic-ultramafic rocks. Li et al. argue that these diagrams, while widely utilized and cited, have often been based on small data sets, containing limited numbers of trace elements and using outdated analytical techniques. Although they are still… Read More

Strontium (Sr) isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) can provide insights into a range of environmental processes. Previous authors have mapped 87Sr/86Sr in both bedrock and water across large spatial scales, but these efforts have assumed that the weathering of primary minerals in bedrock is the only source of environmentally available Sr. Bataille et al.